[ANNOUNCE] You should try Hadrian

[Andrey Mokhov]

Hi Tamar,

Here is the relevant bullet point from the README:

> On Windows, if you do not want to install MSYS, you can
> use the Stack-based build script (Stack provides a managed
> MSYS environment), as described in these instructions.
> If you don't mind installing MSYS yourself or already have it,
> you can use the Cabal-based build script.

As you can see, `doc/windows.md` is recommended for people who “do not want to install MSYS”. Perhaps, the wording is not clear enough – please feel free to suggest improvements.

> In order for ./boot and configure to work already you need to
> be in an msys2 environment.

Yes, and Stack provides it. This means, if you follow instructions in this file, you don’t need to install MSYS yourself.

> There's a dubious claim there that using stack is
> "more robust", what is this claim based on?

This claim is based on my experience. Installing the MSYS environment has never worked out smoothly for me. Doing this via Stack was indeed more robust (especially, when struggling with building GHC on Windows CI!). Has this been different in your experience?

> I'm just confused when it was decided to switch the defaults,
> and why, without any consultation.

I’m not sure what you mean. Could you clarify? The file `doc/windows.md` is 3 years old and hasn’t changed much since creation. The default build script `build.bat` currently uses Cabal:

```
rem By default on Windows we build Hadrian using Cabal
hadrian/build.cabal.bat %*
```

P.S.: I’ve just noticed that `doc/windows.md` hasn’t been updated when moving to GitLab, and created this MR to fix this:

https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/merge_requests/239

Please jump into the comments there if you’d like me to fix/clarify anything.

Thanks for reaching out!

Cheers,
Andrey

From: Phyx [mailto:lonetiger at gmail.com]
Sent: 27 January 2019 21:11
To: Andrey Mokhov <andrey.mokhov at newcastle.ac.uk>; Ben Gamari <ben at well-typed.com>
Cc: GHC developers <ghc-devs at haskell.org>
Subject: Re: [ANNOUNCE] You should try Hadrian

Hi Andrey,

I'm looking at https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/blob/master/hadrian/README.md and https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/blob/master/hadrian/doc/windows.md
wondering why the default instructions for Windows are using stack, this isn't currently the case.

In order for ./boot and configure to work already you need to be in an msys2 environment. So having stack install its own, un-updated msys2 is not a workflow I would recommend.

There's a dubious claim there that using stack is "more robust", what is this claim based on?
I'm just confused when it was decided to switch the defaults, and why, without any consultation.

Regards,
Tamar
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